Obama and Hillary Clinton have both publicly stated their support of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) being discussed by the UN in conference in New York until July 27th.

Addressing the National Urban League Convention in New Orleans yesterday, President Obama once again displayed his fundamental misunderstanding of the Second Amendment:

I, like most Americans, believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms. And we recognize the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation—that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage.

That is similar to what Obama said as a presidential candidate in 2008, when he promised to “protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting.” But as Ice-T could have told him, the main purpose of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms is not to facilitate hunting and target shooting; it is to facilitate self-defense, against both official oppression and private aggression.

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”… “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man,” – Thomas Jefferson

In reality, the founders put the second amendment in the bill of rights not to ensure Americans could enjoy hunting or target practice, but as a protection against government tyranny.

As James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, the right to bear arms was seen as a means of protecting liberties against government intrusion. Madison noted that in “several kingdoms of Europe … governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

Patrick Henry also made it clear that firearms were for self-defense and not duck hunting when he stated, “Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?”

“Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence,” said George Washington, adding that “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference.”

Congressman Ron Paul has also outlined how the assault rifle ban is merely an end run around the second amendment.

“The second amendment is not about hunting deer or keeping a pistol in your nightstand. It is not about protecting oneself against common criminals. It is about preventing tyranny. The Founders knew that unarmed citizens would never be able to overthrow a tyrannical government as they did. They envisioned government as a servant, not a master, of the American people. The muskets they used against the British Army were the assault rifles of the time,” said Paul.

In fact, according to the founders, guns – including AK47s in the modern context – belong in the hands of the citizens and their state militias, as plainly and eloquently spelled out in the Second Amendment. Thomas Jefferson and the founders did not craft the Second Amendment to protect the right of hunters and target shooters. It was included – right after the First Amendment guareenting political speech – to ensure the right of citizens to violently oppose a tyrannical federal government if need be.

AK47s and other “assault” weapons are the sort of tools that will be used if push comes to shove and the people must violently oppose the government.

“The Second Amendment was to protect the ability of the people to violently overthrow the government,” writes Richard Schrade, an attorney from Georgia and member of the Libertarian National Committee. “Let’s remember that this country was formed in a violent revolution. Let’s remember that at Lexington and Concord citizen fired on and killed government soldiers sent by the central government to confiscate their weapons and arms…. When viewed in this light, it is apparent that a limitation on automatic weapons would be an infringement on the purposes of the Second Amendment.”

Such a debate is only possible today because formerly free men no longer have a grasp of history and have been brainwashed by decades of government mandated public education and propaganda. Early on in America, both the Federalists and the anti-Federalists agreed that arms and liberty are inextricably linked. George Mason and others knew reflexively that the most effective way to enslave a people is to disarm them. Mason, in particular, argued that divine providence had given every individual the right of self-defense – including the right to defend against a tyrannical government. Today, we have forgotten all of this.